In public safety, commercial/recreational marine, and animal net capture applications, currently available rescue launching devices are costly, complex, reusable systems that require significant training. Training and training costs are serious considerations for any such technology adoption. Due to their complex nature, a novice operator, or an operator with minimal training, may have difficulty in successfully deploying payloads using these existing products, especially in high stress environments that typically accompany rescues. The result is compromising rapid rescue and jeopardizing lives. The high system costs, payload packing/re-packing, and operational complexity limit wide scale deployment of existing technology, thereby limiting availability of the technology for rescues.
Using public safety as an example, according to 2008 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) data, there are 30,170 fire-rescue departments in the U.S. with a total of 1,498,850 firefighters. This number includes potential water/ice first responders. Approximately 72% of these firefighters are volunteers, and an estimated 53% of these firefighters are involved in technical rescue (e.g., water/ice and high angle) and lack formal training to do so. Water conducts heat from the body twenty five times faster than air. Therefore rapid rescue from water is crucial for survival, especially when ambient temperatures drop. Since a large portion of the U.S. is rural with various bodies of water, and most rural fire-rescue departments are unmanned and served by volunteers, the need for a first responder system to rapidly retrieve a water or ice rescue subject is substantial. Citing 2009 U.S. Lifesaving Association statistics, there were 79,138 rescues just by open water lifeguards. Worldwide, the need to respond to flood disasters and provide effective marine safety will increase as populations living near bodies of water and marine recreation multiply. Statistically the majority of water and ice rescues occur within 300 feet of shore. First responders with manually thrown tethered rescue devices have a typical range of approximately 60 feet, as this is limited by physical strength and accuracy skill. Therefore there is demand for accurate rescue launching systems capable of reaching 300 feet.
In a 2004 letter from the (U.S.) National Association for Search and Rescue (NASAR) to the (U.S.) International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), there was a request to form a committee to address problems each organization had with water rescue. NASAR cited 1999 U.S. Centers for Disease Control statistics, in which 3,529 Americans died due to drowning and 7,940 were hospitalized for near-drowning. Drowning is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. The letter cited that one-third of all drowning victims are would-be-rescuers and the National Fire Protection Association stated that a firefighter is four times more likely to lose their life in a water rescue situation than in fighting a fire.
One example of present technology is the costly (kits range from $1900 to $3300) ResQmax™ line rescue system. This system pulls a line or payload by opening a neck of a large and expensive compressed gas cylinder, thereby letting escaping gas jet tow the reusable line. All payloads in this system must be operator packed and repacked. This requires a high level of operator skill to prevent deployment tangling and delays rapid repeat launches when time is critical. The gas cylinders are heavy and potentially deadly if a rescue subject is struck by the gas cylinder. If the $350 gas cylinder lands on a hard surface, it may become dented, and therefore unserviceable. Accordingly, there is a need for improved rescue launcher systems that are less costly and can be widely deployed for use by minimally trained or novice first responders to initiate water, ice, animal net capture, and the like at safe distances and shortening response times for lifesaving critical rescues.